The Effect of Earthquakes on Ppeople

“Türki ̇ye.” Daily Sabah

(Ready.Gov, 2023)

Robinson, A.(2021)

A United States Geological Service Report

Nathaniel
Table Jones
of Contents
0
Abstract
2
What are Earthquakes
2
 Earth Quake Prone Zones
3

What are the Ddangers of Eearthquakes

4

Solutions and ways to Mitigate Earthquake Damages

5

Conclusion
6

References
8

Figures
Figure 1
3
Figure 2
4

1
Abstract

Writing for the USGS we have done countless research on the world and the geologic

events that have shaped it to what we know today, our goal is to do our best for the world with

the funding we have. Earthquakes and their effects have been effect humans and the worlds

infrastructure since the dawn of earth and have had deadly consequences for populations

around the globe. This paper’s goal is to provide an analysis of the effects of earthquakes on

people and show some ways to solve or at least mitigate the effects of earthquakes. But this

challenge may seem impossible or at least super expensive to complete and the answer to that

is, it may be.

Being able to comprehend the vast damage and effects on individual people and the

communities they reside in are very important for thinking of successful mitigation ideas and

strategies. Looking for the main weak spots in infrastructures and populations is the best place

to start when thinking of ways to help them. Then building on the already secured spots last.

This paper will use already complete research to better back and reinforce the history and
2
effects it has on people and the possible solutions to better keep the world safe from the

geologic event.

What are Earthquakes?

What are earthquakes? A better question is “How do earth quakes occur? ” but both

questions will be answered. In short, an earthquake is the movement or shaking of the earth’s

crust or upper most layer. Earthquakes happen all around the world and even in places where it

may seem odd to have them. Earthquakes are measured in 3 wave types like sound or light

earthquake moves through the earth in waves. P waves, S waves, and surface waves are these 3

wave types are very dangerous and doing

This figure 1 is the
bandwidth of the
earthquakes waves different types of damage. P waves being the
(MTU.edu 2021)

lowest frequency wave allows it to travel

MTU.edu(2022) through liquids like the core allowing us to

(Figure1)
measure an earthquake that happens across

the world. S waves can’t travel through liquid but can through the crust and mantles, Ffigure 1

here shows the wave lengths of the types of earthquakes and how they compare to each other.

Earthquakes have a few other important terms that you will need to better understand it. This e

includes the Epicenter, Focus and Fault. Epicenter is the surface location above where the

earthquake occurred under the surface, this is important to measure damage distances from

earthquakes. The Focus is the next important term and that is where the earthquake happened

using both X, Y, Z coordinates, where it ended up being under the surface on the epicenter and

3
fault, a term that most people have at least heard from Hollywood, there have been many films

made of the doomsday apocalyptic events caused by massive faults. But what is a fault? A fault

is a zone where the earth is fractured between two masses of rock, active faults are typically

along tectonic plate boundaries where the plates rub against each other causing massive

pressure building up eventually moving in one major movement causing the most common

types of earthquakes.

Earthquake prone zones

Earthquake prone zones or

areas are places where

earthquakes occur at an above

average almost predictable

rate, some major earthquake

prone zones in the United

States are in the west coast,

Figure2
Alaskan coast, The mid-west,

Oklahoma, Hawaii, and the Appalachian Mountains, Show in (figure 2). There are many more

but these are the main ones I wanted to touch on. California and Alaska’s earthquakes are

pretty straight forward, it is on the pacific, north American tectonic plate boundary, but what

about all the other earthquakes in the USA? A very interesting one is the earthquakes in the

Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians are ancient mountains that are one of the oldest in

the world, this is a factor because there is no tectonic boundary near the mountain chain at all.

So, what causes those earthquakes? A term known as Isostatic rebounding caused the
4
earthquake. Isostatic rebounding is when the compressed earth from ancient geological events

in these cases the Mountains eroding causing them to become lighter rebounding the earth

upwards releasing massive amounts of pressure from it. The next major area I wanted to

mention is Oklahoma, the earthquakes that occur here are from a fossil fuel extraction method

known as fracking, this causes earthquakes by pumping millions of gallons of water and liquid

underground to loosen up the earth to extract minerals. This cause is growing in occurrence but

has backlash politically. The last earthquake prone area I want to talk on is Hawaii, Hawaii is

unique for the United States and is the only state that has earthquakes specifically for this

reason. Hawaii sits in the middle of the pacific plate, with no faults anywhere near the

epicenters where they occur. So, what could it be? Well, its fairly simple, Hawaii is an island

chain that was build off a hotspot in the middle of the pacific plate, the earthquakes that occur

are from the volcano and the movement of magma under the crust. These where just minor

examples of the types of earthquakes we can experience.

What are the dangers of earthquakes

Earthquakes are one of the main natural disasters of the world. Their main goal is

destroying infrastructure and human life. Earthquakes are also the causes of tsunamis, which

are arguably the worst natural disaster you can think of. The violent shaking caused by

earthquakes collapse buildings, highways, bridges, creates crevices in the earth and can even

instigate volcanic activity. Most recently the Turkey earthquake a magnitude 7.8 with a 7.5

aftershock unleashed destruction upon the nation killing nearly 60,000 people in the region

5
according to (CDF 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake). As natural dilators go it’s one of the most

destructive of modern history. Going a little further back to the Japanese earthquake and

tsunami of 2011, this earthquake and tsunami displaced more than 450,000 people and killed

over 15,000 people according to National Geographic. This tsunami and earthquake didn’t stop

at destruction of houses and cities but the earthquake also caused a nuclear meltdown at the

Fukushima nuclear plant. This natural disaster will continue to be an unfortunate marvel to

many geographic specialists and leave a dark stain on the survivors and their families. Another

modern disaster caused by is the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. This was by far

one of the most destructive earthquakes to cause a tsunami. The earthquake itself was a

massive 9.1 magnitude. This earthquake induced disaster killed nearly 230,000 people from Sri

Lanka to southern Indonesia. But by far the deadliest earthquake in itself in modern history is

the 2010 Haitian earthquake, it killed about 220,000 people and injured over 300,000. It truly is

in a class of its own for being just an earthquake death toll (UN 2010 Haiti earthquake).

It is important for people to know and understand to be informed that earthquakes can

happen anytime any day. There is still so much that needs to be understood and researched

about plate tectonics so we can best understand how to be more prepared when they strike.

You would think that there must be something else we can do like predict it, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is no there are currently no ways we can predict when an

earthquake will happen. However, what we can do is calculate the probability of them once the

initial one begins, we can calculate the aftershocks of the earthquake and this helps over a

small window of time.

Solutions and ways to Mitigate Earthquake Damages

6
 Now that Finally, now that we touched on the basics of earthquakes and side effects of

an earthquake have been discussed, we can brainstorm ideas on how to mitigate the damages.

There is a lot of ideas and brainstorming when it comes to what we can do to try and stop

earthquakes and how to prevent excess damage. Some people believe that drilling for oil and

mining is a reason, which is only true for induced earthquakes. But the fact is that a natural

born earthquake can happen anywhere a convergent or divergent barrier is, and for no real

reason at all besides. You can mitigate possible damages by looking at some basic tips from

FEMA. For example. Some tips wouldtips would be applying safety films to windows so

minimize glass shards and broken glass flying through the room, another being to “Hang mirrors

and pictures with closed hooks” this would reduce the chances of them falling on you while

trying to find somewhere safe to be. According to the article by Internet Geography, ‘Can the

risks of earthquakes be reduced?’ Earthquake drills are starting to become a common

occurrence in schools and this is an important thing to teach children so they better their

knowledge and safety. My best idea is though it is price is Earthquake resistant infrastructures.

These buildings and structures sway with the earthquakes keeping them from collapsing and

falling apart. One of the worst building supplies for earthquakes are bricks, they have no give so

once they fall it brings everything down with it. A good article on how Earthquake resistant

buildings is made is by BigRentz, ‘Earthquake Proof‘ which describes and shows all the basic

properties in designing those buildings.

7
Conclusion
In conclusion Wwe can now come to the realization that eEarthquakes are force to be

reckoned with because of their deadly, bursts of energy that destroy anything in its wake and

even wipe out hundreds of thousands of people. Humans have evolved to overcome these

challenges together with new research and equipment and that’s how we end up rebuilding

from these crises. It is important that we continue to build infrastructure that minimizes the

deaths of people because the best we can do is guess where they will strike again based on

fault lines and put regulations on cities that don’t follow necessary earthquake ready safety

regulations. Earthquakes are powerful and can wipe cities off the map with side effects like

tsunamis which can be even more dangerous that the earthquake itself. Even though there is

no way when or how to predict just about anything that goes on beneath our feet, it is

important to educate yourself on what scientists do know about these natural disasters.

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